Brian Marshall & The ROCK 108 Morning Show - "Kenny Wayne Shepherd"

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I want

to say thank you to my guest Kenny Wayne Shepherd, because when my parents got divorced, my dad lived elsewhere.

But when I was 15, he sent lead-better heights my dad did to me when I was really into grunge.

And not only did this make my father and me understand each other just a little bit more, especially when it related to music, but then I started to listen to more blues and understand and widen my horizons and to you,

Kenny Wayne Shepherd, I want to say thank you, and thank you for joining us on The Rock 108 Morning Show.

Thanks for having me, and I appreciate that, man.

I mean, that's kind of the whole point of music, really, is to bring people together.

And I'm glad to know that my music maybe played a small part in that.

You were releasing that music.

You were what?

How old at the time?

Well, I had recorded Led Better Heights when I was 17 years old.

And by the time it came out, I had turned 18.

But I was just a teenager myself.

and just beginning this, you know, 30-year-long journey that we're on right now.

You're getting into it right in the heart of the 90s.

You, as a 17-year-old and having to tour across the country, did you have any idea what you were getting yourself into at that point?

Well, I didn't know what was going to happen.

I don't think anybody really has any clue, you know, what's going to happen when they start something like this.

But I did grow up around a radio station, and my dad was a DJ and program director.

And so I grew up around music my whole life.

And we went to every concert that came through town.

And I got to go backstage and kind of see the behind the scenes of the touring industry.

And so I had a book behind it through the window of what it might be like.

But I had no idea if my music was going to resonate with thousands or millions of people.

So, since your dad was in radio, did he try to steer you away from doing the national thing, or was he really supportive of doing that?

Well, initially he was trying to steer me away from it.

I think at first, as a kid, I thought I wanted to be a disjockey too, you know?

No, no, you don't want to be on the radio.

There's no money in radio.

Nothing's

changed.

But I didn't play guitar for money either.

It just kind of worked out that I was able to make enough money to support my family with it.

I just did music because I'd love to do it.

And yes, I think in the beginning he was very hesitant and was trying to steer me away from that because there's no guarantees.

And actually, if anything, the odds are against you having success because there's millions of people that would love to do this.

And there's a very small percentage of those people that actually get to do it.

Now, the fact that your dad was in radio, is that what helped you to understand a work ethic and ultimately get out there to do what you do, to practice as much as you have to learn the guitar the way that you did?

Well, I practice just out of sheer love for the instrument.

I mean, I really, I just like to come home and sit down with the instrument for hours.

I would kind of lose track of time because I was so just in the zone of like trying to learn how to play.

So,

It was really kind of, I don't know, almost therapeutic for me.

It still is to this day.

But I think that being exposed to the many, many different kinds of music over the years that my dad was playing on the radio and seeing all those concerts and performances by other artists, that helps me when it came to songwriting and when it came to creating my own concerts and my own flow for my show and stuff like that.

Certainly, like growing up around a radio station is like kind of embedded in me like the desire to write songs that had great choruses and like, you know, would make people want to sing along with them and lyrics and melodies that would stick in your head for days, you know, and as opposed to just focusing on, you know, guitar playing only.

How hard was it for you in 95 when, you know, Led Better Heights drops, Deja Vu hits number nine on the chart at that point.

How hard was it for you while everything else is dominated with the 90s pop, with the grunge at the top?

Did you feel that you were going to have a spot or were you doing something enough that was different that put you in that place?

I didn't have a lot going for me at the time just because it had only been five years since Stevie Ray Vaughan had passed and he was kind of like the guy for this kind of music and it was a huge loss to the blues world, to the music world in general.

And nobody had really come along, you know, since he passed away, you know, was successful doing this music.

So, you know, I had no idea if people were going to welcome me or if they were going to resent me because, you know, my music was very inspired by him because he was one of my biggest influences.

Then the other thing was,

I wasn't even the lead singer in my own band at the time and so I was just a guitar player but the band was named after me and it was like yeah had that going against you and then it was like I was a teenager and so you know and Grunge was like exploding all over the place so really you just had no clue we just had to I wrote and recorded the album that I felt inspired to make and we put it out there and thankfully it connected with a lot of people and we had a great run with that that album went on to become platinum sold over a million copies

And then we put out the second album Trouble Is, and that one outdid the success of the first album.

And between the first three records, that helped me build a foundation with our fan base.

And the great news is people who become fans of this kind of music, they're like fans for life.

And so we built this incredible fan base that's been with us for three decades, and it's still growing every day.

Every night we play a concert.

I asked people how many people are seeing us for the first time, and a lot of times it's like half the house is seeing us live for the first time, so we're still reaching new people.

It's just really, you couldn't ask for better.

Kenny had mentioned building the foundation.

He'd also talked about how your dad was in radio.

Blue on Black goes to number one, not once, but twice.

I mean, what is it about the longevity of that particular track for you that you think resonates with the audience?

Well, for me, I think it's just one of those songs.

There's just something special.

That song has the it factor.

And I believe it from the moment we wrote it.

And again, we put it on the record.

Everybody knew we had something special.

There's so many things beyond just writing a good song that has to fall into place.

There's so many people involved at that level that have to execute their job all at the same time in order for things to really be successful.

And that song was incredibly successful.

But I venture to say that it could have been even more successful if some other things might have fallen into place or some other people might have done certain things differently or better.

But it still had an incredible run.

And I've always felt I've been waiting for somebody to come along and cover that song for years because I'm like, you know, I'm biased because I wrote it.

But a completely objective, you know, opinion is that it's a hit song no matter who does it.

And then eventually the Five Finger Death Punch guys came along and they covered it.

And then we did a version together with Brian May from Queen and Brantley Gilbert and put it out and that song shot us the number one all over again.

And actually that single, that version of that song was recently certified platinum.

So it went platinum all over again too.

That's so wild that you get another platinum record up on your on your walls there.

Brian May, do you get a chance to kind of pick at Brian May's mind a little bit about his thoughts and philosophies?

No, because we actually didn't play that song in the studio together.

So like he put his part, he's probably over in Europe, you know, or England or something when he played his part on that song.

So I haven't even had the chance to meet him yet.

But as a musician, as a guitar player, to have somebody like him, to hear him play a solo on the song that I wrote with, you know, his own unique approach to it is just absolutely incredible.

You mentioned the unique approach.

There's nothing more unique than having a Kenny Wayne Shepherd song covered by Five Finger Death Punch.

What about working with Ivan and the guys?

Ivan had been trying to reach out to me for some time and we were trying to catch up with one another and kept missing each other and then finally we hooked up in Las Vegas.

I was playing a show there and he came out and he was just a really great guy to me.

And, you know, we sat and talked for a while and he said, you know, we're doing, I think they had just recorded their version of the song.

And that's when he was like, when you do another version, I want to have you play on it stuff.

And that just kind of snowballed into this collaboration with five finger death punch and Brian May and Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Bradley Gilbert.

And, you know, I guess that is the rest of history.

I mean, the song,

you

know, shot to number one the second time, just about 20 years after the after it was first released.

and went on to go be certified platinum again.

It's been a great experience and I'm still waiting for somebody else to do it because I just believe in that song so much.

I think if a hot country artist right now went and covered that song, I think it would go to number one on the country chart.

And you mentioned that and I think of Last Goodbye.

Last Goodbye feels like it could be done by a female artist.

What do you think?

Yeah, I agree.

That was a great song, too.

That was a single off of our third album, Live On.

And I think that song, you know, we wouldn't have released it as a single if I didn't feel passionate about it and think that it was a great song.

So, I mean, I thought a lot of female artists actually over the years record songs that I've written, everybody from like Wine Owner, Judd, to another blues artist, Anapophic, so.

Yeah, you know, we tried right and plus, you know, one of my primary songwriting partners is Tia Sillers and she's an incredible woman.

Wow.

An incredible songwriter.

And so I think that was one of the things that has made the songs that we wrote together unique is that it's not always 100 percent from a male perspective.

There's one final question I have for you and I've had this forever.

Does it ever come up or have you ever just said that's enough?

being compared to or mistaken for Johnny Lang.

Well, it doesn't really come up so much anymore.

In the beginning of my career, the similarities really revolved around the fact that I had long blonde hair, and then he had long blonde hair.

And we were both doing blues music.

But it was interesting because my first record came out, and then a year later, his first record came out.

And so I felt like, you know, this was my look and then he came along and he looks very similar.

And so it was weird because overnight it went from like people either recognized me and knew that I was Kenny Wayne Shepard or they just had no idea who I was.

But then it became like, are you Kenny Wayne Shepard or are you Johnny Lane?

And then it was like a weird thing.

And then the Hanson brothers came out with the same hair style too.

And then they became so big that everybody started accusing me of having a Hanson hairstyle.

And I'm like, no, I was before these guys.

Like, I don't know what you guys are talking about, you know.

So the whole thing, actually, eventually I just ended up cutting my hair off, you know, because it was like tired of the Hanson record.

That's the reason you cut your hair is because of Hanson?

Well, no, but that was part of it.

It was like I cut my hair because my hair was so long.

at the time that um it was like high maintenance like it required a lot of care like you know my hair is curly and but my the look that i preferred was when my hair was straightened and so you know in order for my hair to be straight it's like you got to wash it then you got to dry it and sometimes you got to flat iron it and then you know you start sweating and it gets curly and it's frizzy and ball of honor was just like i was just like dude i'm a

I'm a guy and I'm a musician like I'm a blues player like this is too much maintenance for me man and so one day I just didn't want to have to care for it so much anymore I just chopped it off and then I've grown it back out and I've cut it off and you know it's funny how so many people like associate long blonde hair with with me and my identity because like when I cut it off it was like people who knew me for years didn't even recognize me so

The long hair is kind of stuck over the years, but you know I've kind of vacillate back and forth between having long hair and cutting it back off again

P1 nation if you would have told me that I was going to be discussing Kenny Wayne Shepard's hair care and his hair styles at the end of this interview I would have told you That's a little bit much for me, but here we are Kenny Wayne Shepard Kenny Wayne tell P1 nation one more time to bring him on out to the show.

Yes

You know, here's the thing, man.

It's like what we do is we make records so we can play concerts because what we do best is is entertain the people and play live shows.

And so, you know, we're hoping to have a lot of repeat customers come out and see us, but we're also hoping to see a lot of new faces and convert some new fans while we're there.

And so we just guarantee you a good time.

And if you love, you know, blues, if you love rock and roll and just straight up good American music, then you'll have a great time and we're going to hear you're going to hear the hits.

You're going to hear some older stuff and you're going to hear some newer stuff and everything in between.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd, thank you again for the time and thank you for all the music that you put out there.

All right, I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me and I hope to see you at the show.

The Rock 108 Morning Show.